“Were you into her?” I asked.

His face got kind of hard. “She doesn’t factor.”

“She does if you eventually feel you gave up something you wished you hadn’t.”

“Babe, if she was something to me, we would have been exclusive. And that might sound harsh to you, but it isn’t. You don’t know me, so I’ll share I’m not some guy who’s gonna blow off a woman’s feelings with shit like ‘she knew the score.’ We both did. She said on our second date she wasn’t looking for anything serious. She’d just had a bad break. She was easing herself back in. And she gave no indication it was going anywhere for her with me, including when I ended it with her. She just kissed my cheek and told me if I ever wanted a booty call, I had her number.”

I suspected my face got hard at that, or something, because he went on.

“That’s not gonna happen, Ryn. It was her way of saying she dug me enough to have me again, but now that she didn’t, no hard feelings.”

“Boone, I hesitate to share this with you, but I assume you own a mirror, or if not, in your lifetime walked by one, so you gotta know you’re not hard on the eyes.”

This comment made his eyes twinkle.

This guy.

Everything about him was shit hot.

Even his eyes twinkling.

I ignored that (or attempted to, we’ll just say I powered through), and carried on.

“Though, you’re not a woman, so let me share with you how a woman feels about a breakup with a guy like you. She is either A,” I lifted my hand and grabbed my pinkie, “currently outside this house because she’s stalking you, and after you leave, she’s going to break in and attempt to murder me, or B,” I grabbed my ring finger, “working her way through her fourth huge-ass birthday cookie with each bite soaked in her tears.”

Boone started chuckling.

I just gazed steadily at him and lifted my brows.

He stopped chuckling but he still was grinning when he shared, “Ryn, honest to God, she’s good. And again, not to be harsh, but if she’s not, and she lied about not wanting anything serious or kept from me growing feelings, then I’m not sure that’s my issue. But even so, I like to think I can get a bead on people and she just wasn’t that into me, which, seeing as I’m into you, worked for me.”

“She seems quite an unusual woman.”

“It isn’t just men who can disconnect from emotion to find someone to spend time with and give them an orgasm.”

Well, that was true.

“Were you her Dom?”

His expression softened, his eyes grew a fascinating mixture of tender and reproving, and he said gently, “Don’t ask shit like that.”

Which meant he was.

I looked down at my hands.

“You’re not a virgin, I’m not a virgin,” he said, and my head came back up. “You’ve played, I’ve played. I can guarantee you haven’t played like I play, but I am not gonna ask about anyone who had you, unless there’s something they did that you didn’t like that I’ll need to avoid.”

Curiosity, as it was wont to do, got the better of me.

“I haven’t played like you play?” I asked.

He shook his head. “First, when we get there, and I’m takin’ us there after we get to know each other better, sweetheart, no sooner, but in the beginning, we’re vanilla. I want us to have that to build what we got, as well as get familiar with each other’s bodies before we go there. And just to say, I dig vanilla, as long as it’s creative, so that’s always on the table. But we’ll have that in the beginning ’cause I’ll also need to discover your hotspots so I can take advantage of them when the time comes.”

A certain spot was hot with the way he was talking.

“Other than that,” he shifted to start opening and closing cupboards, “I might collar you when I’m feelin’ like seein’ you wear my ownership, but I don’t dig the deep end of the scene.”

One might think this was odd, this depth of sexual sharing at this juncture.

But this was natural.

This was usual.

This feeling-out of each other, Dom and sub.

Not details of what to expect, that’d take the fun out of it.

But a sharing of practices, what was in, what was out, what was to be avoided, what could be explored, and cementing an understanding of hard limits was essential before anything more involved came about.

That said, I was finding it hard to follow along when he was talking about taking advantage of hotspots and collaring me.

“What do you consider the deep end of the scene?” I asked.

He came out of a cupboard with plates, set them down, and started opening and closing drawers.

“Role play. Cos play. There’s gonna be bondage and there’s gonna be spanking, you earn it. But no whips or shit like that. I’m not into inflicting pain. Toys’ll be mutually agreed, until you get what I like, I get what you like, and then there might be some surprises.”

He set silverware on the plates and looked directly at me.

“Mostly, Kathryn, I tell you what to do, and you do it, or I tie you up and play with you until I’m ready to let you come. If you need deeper than that, I like you. I want you. I still wanna see where this could go. But I can tell you now, that’s not gonna get me off. So you’re gonna have to think hard on that, sweetheart.”

“I…” I swallowed, “don’t need deeper than that.”

He leaned into his hands on my counter and said gently, “You know not to hold that shit back, yeah?”

I nodded.

“I just need to let go, Boone. It isn’t for me to say what you do, as you know, but I don’t like pain or humiliation, and I’ve only ever been whipped once, by Bad Dom, and I’d shared that was a hard limit.”

“Kovack,” he grunted, no longer appearing matter-of-fact in order to sort through stuff that for people not like us, they’d probably think it was crazy, and smutty.

But for people like us, it was crucial.

“I’ve told a lot of friends I know in the life about him. I don’t know if he’s finding play partners, but he has a reputation and you know we look out for our own.”

“That doesn’t cut it because he’s finding play partners, and they might not be in the life, so he might be finding some vanilla chick who has no idea what’s about to hit her, and that means he really needs a lesson in precisely why that’s not okay. And it was seriously not fuckin’ okay when he did it to you.”

I couldn’t argue that, so I didn’t.

Boone noted I wasn’t going to, therefore he asked, “We gonna eat?”

I nodded.

His expression changed again, becoming searching and…

God.

Sweet.

“We gonna do this?” he asked gently.

“We don’t seem to get along very well,” I remarked nervously.

“We haven’t tried very hard,” he pointed out.

When I said nothing, Boone asked a question.

“You scared?”

Terrified.

“When you’re not being bossy, invasive and sticking your nose into things that aren’t your business, you seem pretty awesome.”